Lost!

So, what is Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) anyway? This term exploded onto the Content Management Scene this month (late last week, actually) and every major ECM solutions provider from Microsoft, to EMC with Alfresco in-between are worked up over this. Heck, even the almighty IBM has jumped in!

Even though this story broke weeks ago, I wanted to wait a bit to research the true impact of this agreement as well as how the community felt about it instead of being another blogger recycling news stories (I REALLY try to not do that, but it happens on occasion.) On top of that, work has turned into one of those jobs where you come home and stare at the wall for “fun” at night, so this is a little late…

CMIS: What is it?
CMIS is actually two things:

Content Management Interoperability Services
Common management information service

Interesting how they chose an acronym that already talks about computer shtuff eh?

So, how does it work? Well, I’m not going to actually going to tell you… I’m going to point to someone that has done a great job of explaining how the system works. Craig does a great job of explaining how things work, how things inter-operate and it even has pictures for those of you that hate to read…

Preview of the Next Blog Post: Why Cloud Computing Isn’t There Yet:
As Microsoft and others start releasing more and more “Cloud Computing” environments, the “chatter” on the internet gets higher and higher. But, in the end, what is cloud computing and how does it, or will it, effect you? Are the applications and Operating Systems starting to go that route or are we at a point in broadband to were we can successful, and reliably, use a Cloud Architecture?

I just wrote about Alfresco, so I figured I should do the same for SharePoint, since Alfresco and SharePoint are considered direct competitors. SharePoint is also mentioned in a hust list of Press Releases from Alfresco.

Company Growth
Microsoft has always been a strong company, no matter how much you look at it or hate it. Since the very beginning, most things have always gone right for the company - either that or there is just so much going on between hardware and software, that things typically don’t get noticed (except Vista, right?). With that said, Microsoft is still a strong company. Hiring is still strong and they’re even taking back employees that have left Google to return or start at Microsoft. Needless to say, Microsoft isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon.

Application News
While I should have mentioned the current version of Alfresco in my last story, I just forgot (they’re on 2.2). So, to make it quick and simple, Microsoft is currently pushing Sharepoint 2007, otherwise known as Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server (MOSS). Unless you’ve been hiding under the proverbial ECM rock, you’ve heard of Sharepoint. Currently, they’re working on the next version rumored to be a 2009 release.

Sharepoint was recently placed in the in the Leader’s quadrant with IBM, ECM, Open Text and Oracle for Enterprise Content Management (ECM). This is interesting because I truly expected a larger share of the ECM market for Sharepoint. Alfresco is mentioned around mid-niche grade as well. Oddly, OnBase is the only Niche provider listed as a challenger - it’s the first time I’ve heard of them… Again - another story for another time. Anyway, this is a pretty decent news item because it literally plots Sharepoint on where it stands on the map - especially considered next to Alfresco.

On other news items, Sharepoint adoption in Europe is “exploding“. While I wish I could vouch for this, I only see the US side of things. While I know that certain parts of the US Government use it, covet it and all that touchy-feely stuff, there are other parts that downright refuse to look at it or use it because 1 person (who happens to make the decisions) “doesn’t like it”. Oddly, that sounds like an OSS excuse as well doesn’t it?

While there is no specific GSA award for Sharepoint (lots of training GSA contracts, however), Sharepoint is in use by multitudes of Governments and does price with a standard Government scheme. They also allow for educational usage, etc. Licensing costs can be harsh, depending on what you want though.

Open Source, Right?
Those of you that know anything about Sharepoint know that the only “open source” like files are the templates and a few odds and ends, here and there. No core files are sourced, nor do you want to look in some of the files that do have the source - they’ll give you a headache (research CAML if you really want to go cross eyed).

Well, Microsoft is Microsoft and you won’t see the Sharepoint code…ever. While it would be interesting to make some sections of Sharepoint OSS, coming from an Enterprise angle, I’m not sure if I’d want that. Customizing an Enterprise application is something a lot of companies do. When you do this, it makes updating the application a worse situation every time you touch a file. By the time you’ve got it the way you like, more likely than naught, you won’t be able to update the application without breaking nearly everything about it.

Sales
Sales for Sharepoint have risen up and up over the last few years. Now, in 2008 (it is 2008, right?), Sharepoint sales are expected to top $1 Billion. I would say that Sharepoint sales have been steady at this point ;-)

What is interesting is that Microsoft is making that much money, yet has barely touched the leader quadrant of the Gartner survey…

Wrap-Up
While I’d love to provide a quote, it’s really un-needed due to the link above. Sharepoint is a decent product, as long as you use it right. The features added in the 2007 release make Sharepoint an even nicer product for the corporate environment due to the Blog and Wiki features.

Other than that, I’ll try to have part 3 of the Alfresco vs Sharepoint story out here soon. I’m finishing installing my Dev environment on my Mac (VMWare Fusion) as I type this. Once that gets all setup, it’ll be so much easier for me to take screenshots and compare everything. I’ll use the actual server I have for performance comparisons so I know that the Mac environment isn’t causing problems.

Preview of the Next Blog Post: The Best CMS For “Me”:
Recently, I talked to a friend about CMS engines and how he felt about them. He gave me some insight as to how he decides what to download, what to install and what to trash. It’s a little interesting to get into the mind of someone that knows just enough to be dangerous on the web side of things.

Now that I have a full blown server at home, I needed a way to use it for several purposes. There where two options:

Install Everything, including the kitchen sink, on one OS and deal.
Install a Virtual Machine Server to allow me to use multiple computers.

Between those two options, I’ve done the first, not fun. The second was the only way to go. The hard part about that option was, which software to install.

There has been 1 major vendor for the VM market for several years, but several have come out recently that are making headway - mainly, Microsoft’s Virtual Server. I chose to go with Virtual Server because I get the Enterprise Edition with my MSDN subscription and VMWare’s 64bit environment, from what I’ve read, is a software hack that happens to work right. VMWare can also cost a lot more than I was willing to spend for my little po-dunk test server.

Install
Installation of the software is so simple, your typical teenager could do it. The hard part is getting it to actually fire up. The reason I say that is because I installed it on Server 2008. If you’ve never messed with Server 2008, I strongly suggest you start learning ASAP, because things are much different. Server 2003 allowed you to select various components of IIS to install in Add/Remove Programs - 2008 takes it a step further by allowing all kinds of weird options inside of IIS to be added and removed individually. On top of that, IIS 7 threw me through a loop too.

Long story short, I installed the software, went to the configuration screen (which happens to be a web page) and nothing happened. All I got was a blank page. The standard “Welcome to IIS 7″ page wasn’t displaying either. To fix this, I had to do all of the following:

Activate CGI Access (IIS)
Activate .Net (IIS)
Activate Simple Auth (IIS)
Activate Static Content (IIS)
Add the localhost name to the trusted zone (IE)
Check “Always Prompt” for username/password (IE)

After that was all done, things worked and the fun got worse. I accidently downloaded and installed the 32 bit version - oops. I had to uninstall and reinstall the software, which went very quick and things where back to normal again.

VM Setup
I ran into more problems here, and those problems may turn people off from this software. I honestly got a little upset when I found out that, even if you are running a 64 bit OS, with a 64 bit install of MSFT-VMS, you can ony run 32 bit Virtual Machines. Aparently, the 64 bit VM capability will be added in the next major release, which is slated for…awhile. This problem caused me to re-download a lot of the OS’ and software that I needed as well as rethink my plans for later. This is also the reason that I was forced to install Exchange 2003 since 2008 is only 64bit. MSSQL 2005 was installed because 2008 wasn’t officially out of Beta at the time and I needed to brush up on it before moving to 2008. I’ll be installing Exchange and MSSQL 2008 when the VM software supports the 64 bit environment.

Other than that, setup went ok. There are some issues I have with the software, however.

• CPU Utilization is a little clunky. I can only evenly split up the CPU states. If I barely use Exchange, but would like to push more resources towards IIS, I have to assign a “Weight” to the process, making things a little odd to understand.
  
  

  CPU Utilization and Weighting

• When remoting in, you are given an itty-bitty 640×480 (approx) box to use via webpage. This is, unless you decide to use Remote Desktop to remote into each machine. I’ve turned this on, because things just don’t size well using the internal web (ActiveX) Viewer. And yes, there is an RDP client for the Mac… Click the picture below for a full size view of the internal Remote screen.
  
• Only 32bit OS’ are currently supported. This means a max of 4GB of memory per machine. If I wanted to allocate more memory to my MSSQL server and just shut off Exchange, I have wasted memory since I can’t force more than 4GB on it. This also starts to cause problems on what you can and cannot install - ie: Exchange 2003 vs 2008.
• For some reason, I don’t know if it’s caused by Windows or the VM Client, but when mounting ISO’s to the machine, the ISO is cached until you switch the ISO option to the physical disk then back to a new ISO file. This causes problems when you’re attempting to install something with multiple disks.
• I haven’t put much effort into it, but due to the way the VM Environment is setup, certain flavors of Linux have problems with it. It is not setup like VMWare that emulates full on hardware.

HyperV
Some of you slick people out there may be shaking their heads wondering why I’m running Server 2008 and Virtual Server instead of HyperV. Well, first, go and read this. It’s a copy of a Blog post by the original author (that post now 404’s on the authors website). Secondly, Microsoft’s own website lists an oddly worded explanation between the VM Server Product and HyperV:

Q. What are the differences between Hyper-V and Virtual Server?
A. Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 is the current server virtualization solution from Microsoft and is based on a hosted virtualization platform. Hyper-V, a key feature of Windows Server 2008, is a hypervisor-based virtualization platform that will enable customers to not only consolidate a vast array of workloads but also enable moving toward a dynamic IT environment. Core feature set differences include support for 64 guest virtual machines, SMP support, performance improvements, and other key features in Hyper-V.

Well, there you have it - it has a few things that I want, but after reading that blog post, it needs to mature a little more than I care to even think about. At least right now, I can literally copy and paste a machine to a secondary dir and have a full-on backup. When I started this exercise, I built one machine up and copied it to other files, fired those machines up, renamed a few things and *poof*, things just worked.

In the end, I’m satisfied with the VM Product from Microsoft, but not wowed like I was when I first saw VMWare. I would love to get ahold of a 2008 copy at some point as well. Oddly, I have a feeling that MSFT will try to sway the market by changing 2008 to the point where people like myself are forced to use HyperV. Maybe one of these days, I’ll be brave enough to touch it.

Preview of the Next Blog Post: What’s Next For Alfresco?:
After a long hiatus from blogging, I’m starting to get back into the ECM scene and I’m trying by doing a blog post daily for this entire week… But, since I’ve been so down on Alfresco for so long, I figured I’d take an in-depth look at them. Again, I’m not anti-Alfresco. I truly and honestly would love to see Alfresco take a good sized chunk of the ECM market away from other companies - and remember, there isn’t just Sharepoint out there as a competitor…

I’m only 10 days late on this due to a new job (YEA!), but I’ve talked about Krugle before (here and here), but this is one company that I really enjoy talking about for various reasons. This time, they’ve managed to nail one of the biggest software companies in the world, Microsoft.

Although MSDN branded, the MSDN Code Search Preview is hosted at Krugle. (Official Krugle Screenshot)

Microsoft has decided to deploy Krugle on the MSDN Code Gallery, but they are doing so in a new way. Unlike a lot of other customers that Krugle has, Microsoft chose to “…utilize a public-facing deployment of Krugle Enterprise Appliance. This will enhance the search process by allowing both internal and external members of the MSDN community to search code snippets and examples from the MSDN Library.” (Source: Official Krugle Blog post)

Krugle maintains the code search “preview” page here. Again, just a preview. Currently, Microsoft maintains the About Page, which maintains the following opening paragraph:

The MSDN Code Search Preview lets you search for code on MSDN. MSDN Code Search is a “preview” at this time because it only includes code snippets and examples from the MSDN Library and doesn’t yet include code from MSDN Forums, MSDN Code Gallery, or Codeplex (to be included at a later date).Source

So, one of a few things is happening here:

• MSFT is testing Krugle to see how the Search waters work for them and if it’s worth further relations.
• MSFT is slowly allowing Krugle to crawl the code (which should be happening anyway), but taking the relationship slow.
• MSFT is “testing” the technology for their own search needs.
• MSFT is “testing” the relationship to see if corporate attitudes jive.

While I have email addresses of several people at Krugle as you’ve seen in past stories, I’m not going to email them for comment. Anyone worth anything in corporate won’t comment on the above bullets and I have more respect for Krugle than most companies…

Looking at the MSDN Search Forums, coders are less than happy about Live Search on the MSDN site. Unfortnately, it appeared that no one had released the Krugle site on the Forum to all the people complaining - so I did…

So, will Krugle’s involvment in the MSDN search help? Um, yes. Being a part-time coder myself, I’ve used Krugle’s engine on several occasions and I’m starting to use it more and more. The fact that they’re now crawling the MSDN side of things, I’ll be using it daily at work.

Preview of the Next Blog Post: The (Almost) Perfect Home ECM Test Server:
Some people, like myself, test many CMS and ECM packages on a normal basis. There are, however, many people that may need to test these types of packages in a cheaper environment than on an enterprise class server that costs tens of thousands of dollars - whether they’re part of a small business, startup or even a large business with someone “testing” at home. On top of the CMS and ECM packages, I wanted something to help me test Enterprise class software (read: learn) for future use and I think I accomplished more than what I wanted.

I’ve written about Alfresco several times, I’ve even received comments back about my writing style with respect to Alfresco. Well, tonight is no exception. I received a comment that made me think a little and my response turned into a full-blown post.

You really have it in for Alfresco don’t you? To be perfectly neutral on the subject, (I honestly have no affiliations with Alfresco), you do come across as favouring MS.

I have a very weird attitude towards Alfresco, and it’s due to two different views that I’ve come to love and hate. Specifically, they are the Pro OSS side and the Enterprise Techie Side.

Alfresco is a great accomplishment on the OSS side of things. The community parti poker netpoker regeln holdfive card draw pokerparty poker bonus,party poker 50 bonus,bonus bei party pokerpoker um geld spielensichere online spielepoker anleitung texas holdempoker no deposit bonusparty poker downloadmultiplayer championship poker texas holdempoker software gratisomaha poker rulesonline spielenpoker texaspoker kostenlosplay omaha pokerpoker stars bonus code7 card stud downloadfull tilt poker bonustexas holdem poker handsregeln zu pokerplay omaha poker onlinetexas holdem ohne anmeldungonline poker für macgratis poker gamespoker spiel downloadentexas holdem wahrscheinlichkeitpoker java gamewww poker spielenpoker taxas holdempoker signup bonuspokerstars bonusparty poker net cheatsholdem poker pc gamewo kann man poker spielenonline poker detexas holdem poker downloadmultiplayer championship poker holdemtexas holdem no limit regelnparty poker 75draw poker onlinevincere poker onlinesoftware cartepoker texano on linestip poker gratisil poker onlinestrategie texas holdemfull tilt pokerpoker roompoker texas holdem,tornei poker texas holdem,regolamento poker texas holdem is providing a great product and they’ve really put a lot of effort into it.

The other side of the fence is the IT guy that has to make a decision to buy a “more expensive product” or Alfresco. After going through their sales process (for a very real, possible sale) a year ago, they had a heck of a lot of growing up to do. They also do several other things that annoy me as well - but I tend to write about most of those.

Unfortunately, due to time constraints, I haven’t had a chance to perform another sales call to them, so they may have fixed many of my initial points (there are more than the points I freaked out on before). I was actually about to perform another sales call, but managed to land a job last Wed and ended up starting that same Friday - talk about fast.

Anyway, from what I’ve seen, Alfresco could be great, but it needs to do a few things better to be something thats going to stay around for awhile. At this point in time, I honestly believe that the company itself is growing it’s employee and cost base way too fast and I’m predicting some nasty stuff is going to happen in the next few years - and yes, I know they just received a $9M round of funding…

The software alone will not “make” this company. In all honesty, I would love to see Alfresco become a profitable company.

I will offer this piece of advice to anyone that will take it, completely free of fees, royalties and lawsuits: The first company that designs a kick-ass SharePoint alternative using C#.Net mixed with MSSQL will make a boat load of money, OSS or not.

As for being Pro-MS (aka: SharePoint), at the moment, I am and so is most of the business world. Ask anyone that has purchased SharePoint if they even looked at Alfresco for longer than a quick peek at their site, I’m willing to bet they didn’t look long at all. As much as I hate it, the business world is completely Pro-MS and some will even laugh you right out of the room for suggesting OSS alternatives. Oddly, some of these same businesses use FireFox internally. Things that make you go Hmm.